Frankie Conway
Frankie Conway
Frankie Conway was born Nicola Iacovelli in Italy on November 3, 1900. He began fighting professionally in Philadelphia in late 1914 or early 1915, and fought over 200 bouts before losing his eyesight to a ring injury. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he operated a soft-drink saloon in Camden. After a great deal of legal wrangling, in the late 1930s Frankie Conway obtained a liquor license in Westmont (Haddon Township), New Jersey and operated a bar there at 110 West Cuthbert Boulevard for over 20 years. Frankie Conway’s bar in Westmont is still open, and has been known for many years as Fischer’s.
Frankie Conway is often confused with another fighter who fought out of New York under the same name at about the same time whose real name was Frank Ferris.
Frankie Conway passed away in 1960.
Photos
Frankie Conway boxing photographs
New Orleans States – December 20, 1917
New Orleans States – December 20, 1917
Frankie Conway vs. Benny Valger
Trenton Evening Times –
Philadelphia, Jan. 2.—In a bout that sizzled with action Benny Valger of New York almost stopped Frankie Conway of this city at the National Sporting Club last night. Valger all but had his opponent out at the end of the sixth round.
New York vs. Philadelphia Boxing Card
Philadelphia Inquirer –
New York vs. Phillie
Five New York boys will meet five local lads in the boxing bouts tonight. The semi-windup between Frankie Conway of this city and Terry Miller of New York will furnish some good boxing. Eddie Miller will try and hook up with Danny Davis. Gussie Davis of New York meets Young Morane of this city in the windup.
Pusey and Jones Hold Boxing Carnival
Philadelphia Inquirer –
Gloucester City, N. J., July 4.—The feature of the first outdoor athletic carnival of the Pusey & Jones Club of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania shipyards today was the boxing carnival. There were six scheduled bouts, but only five were held, due to the fact that Tiger Davis, who was to oppose Harry Wenner, of the New Jersey ship yard, in the semi-wind up did not put in his appearance and the medal was awarded to Wenner.
The other five bouts were all full of pep and were enjoyed by the several thousand ship workers and their families. The carnival was in charge of Theodore Fluck, who was appointed boxing promoter of the two yards and most of the bouts were between employes who are well trained in the art of boxing and have appeared at the Philadelphia clubs.
The wind-up, which was between Frankie Conway, of the Pusey & Jones Club, and Private Bradley of Company K, Twenty-second Infantry, was a regular slugging match. The two boys fought furiously and just before the bell rang in the third round Bradley gave up, and Conway was decided the winner.
In the opening bout Johnny O’Brien of H 202 was a little too heavy for Harry Donohue of the Plate and Angle Shop and dropped the latter twice, but Donohue was on his feet in an instant and did some clever fighting. The judges awarded the bout to O’Brien, who weighed 140 pounds to Donohue’s 125. In the second bout Young Grim of the Plate and Angle Shop dropped Buck Wilson of the Rivet Testing Department to the mat in the third round and he was counted out. He suffered a broken nose.
In the third bout Billy Fuller and Ed Wagner of H 202 boxed for the championship of H 202 and to settle a grudge, but the judges declared the bout a draw.
In the fourth bout Ed Nelson of the Pennsylvania pile driver machine dropped Young Douglass of the Plate and Angle Shop, in the first round.
The bouts were refereed by Duncan Carswell, former featherweight champion of Scotland, and William Robinson, of Gloucester.
Boxing Carnival
First bout—Johnny O’Brien, 140 pounds, of the H 202, defeated Harry Donohue, 125 pounds, of the Plate and Angle Shop. Donohue went to the mat twice.
Second—Young Grim of the Plate and Angle shop knocked out Buck Wilson of the Rivet Testing Department. Wilson was knocked out in the third round.
Third—For championship of H 202, Billy Fuller and Ed Wagner fought a draw.
Fourth—Ed Nelson knocked out Young Douglass of the Plate and Angle Shop in the first round. Nelson represented the Pennsylvania yard pile driving machine.
Fifth—Semi windup. Tiger Davis, of the Pennsylvania yard, failed to appear and the bout was awarded to Harry Wenner of the New Jersey yard.
Sixth—Windup. Frankie Conway of the Pusey and Jones Club was given the decision over Private Bradley of Company K, 2d Infantry.
Championship Boxing Tournament Advertisement
Philadelphia Inquirer –
NATIONAL A.A. 12TH AND CATHARINE STS.
CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING TOURNAMENT
HARRY WILLS vs. JACK THOMPSON EDDIE McGLOSKEY vs. W. BOBBY HUSMAN FIGHTING DICK SUTTON vs. KID BROWN FRANKIE MACK vs. JOE WELSH
LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP GEO. K. O. CHANEY vs. LEW TENDLER BATTING LEVINSKY vs. WM. WILLIAMSON HARD PAN KENNY vs. BENNY LEONARD
TICKETS AT DONAGHY’S, 23 S. 11TH ST.
Boxing Brittle [sic]
Philadelphia Inquirer –
One of the best lightweight bouts seen in this city for sometime should result from the meeting of Willie Jackson and Jack Russo in the final bout tomorrow night at the National A. A. Both boys carry a K. O. in either mitt. They are also fast on their pins and on that account a fast bout is anticipated. Benny Valger, the little French champion, is “down on the cards” to hookup with Whitey Fitzgerald, of this city, in the semi-final. Valger and Fitzgerald are also a pair of corking mixers with action all the time. The other bouts are: Victor Ritchie vs. Jimmy Mendo, Phil Frenchine and Joe Leonard, Johnny Murray vs. Frankie Conway.
Baltimore Sun – January 24, 1919
Baltimore Sun – January 24, 1919 (click images to view PDF)
Artie Root Wins Over Joey Fox
Trenton Evening Times –
Cleveland Lightweight Has the Better of Tame Six-Round Bout
Philadelphia, April 22.—Artie Root, the Cleveland lightweight, defeated Joe Fox of England, in the windup at Olympia last night. The bout was a miserable exhibition if judged as a boxing bout. The men were clinched for about half the time they were in the ring, and they pulled and mauled each other around like two longshoremen.
In other bouts, Dave Astey of New York beat Frankie Conway of Camden. Joe Koons of this city beat Terry Richards of New York, and Al Moore beat Jimmy Myson.
Jersey Journal, Jersey City – October 28, 1919
Jersey Journal (Jersey City, N.J.) – October 28, 1919
Philadelphia Inquirer – September 28, 1920
Philadelphia Inquirer – September 28, 1920 (click images to view PDF)
Philadelphia Inquirer – March 1, 1921
Philadelphia Inquirer – March 1921 (click images to view PDF)
Conway Subs for Berrish
Philadelphia Inquirer –
Benny Berrish was not permitted by the physicians to go on for his battle with Knockout Bob O’Donnell of Gloucester, and so Frankie Conway, who weighed 131 pounds, took on the burden against the knockout artist.
Although Frankie did not win, he made a success of the enterprise, for he gave his opponent a real battle, the latter winning by a shade only because of his rugged aggressiveness and superior infighting. Conway, a veteran of great cleverness and experience, kept O’Donnell off with a wonderful left jab which he manipulated with all the grace and skill of a fencer with a rapier. It was a very fancy fight from start to finish, and it kept the boys in good humor from bell to bell.
Salt Lake Telegram – October 17, 1922
Salt Lake Telegram (Salt Lake City, Utah) – October 17, 1922 (click images to view PDF)
Philadelphia Inquirer – November 6, 1922
Philadelphia Inquirer – November 6, 1922 (click images to view PDF)
Camden Courier-Post – June 1, 1938
by Gordon Mackay
Is Zat So!
TWENTY years rolled away by magic the other day as I sat in the press room at City Hall, chatting with a chap whose sightless eyes gave me a pang and a gulp. As he talked to me in the modulated tones that he used, my mind was racing back to the old National A.C. at Eighth and Catherine streets, in Philadelphia. I could see Jack McCulligan, since called to his fathers, as the fitful gleams of the lights played upon a ring. Inside were noble disciples of the manly art of self-defense, while the thousands swarmed to the rafters were yelling and shouting and gesticulating, as they besieged one or the other of the mittened warriors to “knock his block off.”
Ah, those were the days when giants lived, when warriors battled for the sheet lure on the slightest provocation to triumph. The blind battler with whom I talked was—
Frankie Conway
than whom no gamer, more courageous and gentlemen ever trod the soil of South Jersey, or any other terrain. I well recall Frankie Conway when he was at the height of the fame that was honestly earned. Frankie was ever a gentleman, a chap, quiet, self-possessed and “a lighter from the east gone.”
To see him sightless, to learn that he went blind 14 years ago and that even now he is trying to get a license to earn a living, saddened this old geezer. It’s tough to see in the flesh, helpless perhaps, such a gladiator as Frankie Conway was in the days of the long ago.
“Gosh,” Frankie said, as we sat down to recall old times, and to compare notes, “it doesn’t seem as if it’s been so many years ago, to see you down at the National.”
Those were the days and those were the times when real fighters were around these parts.”
Recalled Fight with Joe O’Donnell
“You’re telling me,” we replied. “Remember those battles with Joe O’Donnell?”
“Those were real scraps, too. Frankie was proud that he had defeated Jody, Joe’s son, in Gloucester 365 days in the years.”
Both were battlers of like weight. Whenever they scrapped you could bet all the tea in China that Camden and Gloucester were represented in the spectators, and that plenty of dough was spread on the line for bots.
“Frankie,” I said to him, “I was surprised to hear that you had gone completely blind. How did it happen?”
Right there Mr. Conway revealed the strength of a character that sublimes courage that conquers handicaps. Not a word of regret, not a whine, not a sour note.
“It was all an accident”, Conway told me. “I was fighting Jimmy Mendo—good clean kid he was, too. You know how those thumbs stick up in the boxing gloves? Well I was side-stepping to land a right to Jimmy’s head when he slapped me with a left.
“The thumb of the glove struck me in the eye and it hurt at the time, but I didn’t pay any attention to it, for it was my fault, for if I had taken care of my eye in proper fashion and wasn’t so negligeful, I might have saved my sight. At any rate the eye started to grow worse. Before I could realize the fact, I was stone blind.”
Would cause shivers to run up the back of a numbie statue to hear this courageous veteran boxer, now but 37, relate in calm, modulated tones, how he lost his left eye, the most precious gift that Dame Nature bestows upon her children.
It didn’t want to call up the harrowing details too long, but the thing that struck me about Frankie Conway and his terrible affliction was the real downright bravery with which he greeted such a terrible bequest from Fate.
No word of regret. No word of complaint. A hero in everything that the word implies and conveys—that was the Frankie Conway to whom I spoke of the old times.
Seeks License in Westmont
Frankie told me that sightless as he is today he still keeps training. He works with Lew McFarland, another of the buddies of the Mackey who in his heyday sat watching the hooks and jabs and counters in the old, old days that make me feel like Methuselah.
Circa boys. Frankie and Lew. Pals together as once they were rivals in the ring. Working together at Lew’s health institute. Pals whom Tom Ryan, sports editor of the Camden-Post, recently wrote about in one of the most graphic, corking stories that I’ve read on a sports page in some time.
Everything Tom said about Frankie and Lew I’ll echo. I sat often at the ringside with the smell of resin in my nostrils, the fitful gleams of the lights playing garnishly on features, sometimes bloodsmeared, sometimes puffed through mutual assault and battery, sometimes gruesome in the pummeling the countenance had suffered.
Never did I see two gladiators who were more courageous, more honest in giving the spectators a legitimate run for their money than Frankie and Lew. Those lads deserve something from life. They deserve something from those white-collared spectators who curiously fought through the mittened hands of Conway and McFarland.
None of my business either, this discussion regarding a license for Frankie Conway. But to me, who has known the little warrior for years, who realizes his worth in the squared circle, his decency as a fighter and a gentleman, I don’t see how anybody can keep a license away from Frankie Conway.
Ten chances to one that most of the dudes who refuse licenses to chaps like Conway are the same birds who sit in comfort and ease, wearing white collars and feeling ennobled, while they yell “Kill that bum!” because they want their buck’s worth of gore and mayhem.
Personally, I like to see the white collar boys in the audience wallow in gore that isn’t theirs. But after all, I’m still in Frankie Conway’s corner. Come what may.
Burnett Awards License to Conway
Camden Courier-Post –
Boxer Tells of Obtaining Special Permit for Opening Westmont Taproom
Frankie Conway, well-known blind boxer, declared last night he was granted a special permit by D. Frederick Burnett, state alcoholic beverage commissioner, to open a taproom at 18 Cuthbert road, Westmont, whenever he chose. The permit, Conway explained, allows him only to run the place until the end of this month, when formal application must be made for a renewal of the license.
When Edward D. Marker, chairman of the commissioners of Haddon township, learned of the beverage commissioner’s action, he summoned a meeting of township officials and said he saw nothing the township rules could do about it.
“I don’t see how we can take any further action,” said Marker, “and at any rate, we’ll have to wait until Mark Marritz, our solicitor, returns from his California trip and get this matter settled.”
Conway’s application for a license to operate a taproom at the Cuthbert road site has been a bone of contention with the township commissioners for months past. The commissioners rejected the application and Conway appealed to Burnett. At the meeting on Thursday night, the township commissioners still refused to grant the license, laying the matter over until June 20, when Marritz is expected to be home.
Photos
Frankie Conway
Camden Courier-Post – March 19, 1949
Life Hereabouts
Life Hereabouts
BY CHARLEY HUMES
DOWN MEMORY LANE with that Old Gang of Yours . . . in a few of the years when Our Town was as good a sport town as any in the land . . . from the time that Taylor and Gunnis promoted fights through the years to Roxey Allen . . . Mickey Blair . . . Eddie Chaney . . . Shamus Maguire . . . Pee Wee Ross . . . Jackie Hindle . . . Watson Finch . . . Georgie Abner . . . Nick Nicholas . . . Dixie Allen . . .
The days when Camden was the Mecca for Philly fight fans . . . with champions like Mike O'Dowd . . . Benny Leonard . . . Pete Herman . . . Jimmy Wilde . . . Gene Tunney . . . fighting in the Armory on Haddon avenue . . . for One, Two and Three . . . tax included . . . the days of John Smith . . . whose son, Lee, became one of our great friends . . . the days when Philly came to Camden to see the best fighters in the land . . .
AND THEN DOWN through the years with Lou McFarland . . . Higgins and Kaplan . . . Tommy James . . . the man named Doyle who always gave us a smile when we called him "Mister" because he was so kind . . . When Sergeant Ray Smith became a referee . . . "Pose" Robinson . . . the days of Willie Davis . . . Harry Smith . . . Jim Kelly . . .
Fights in the ball park at Twelfth and Federal streets . . . at the Fairview Ball Park . . . in the Temple Theatre . . . the Star Theatre . . . Newt Blanchard, the only promoter who gave us MORE money than we asked for . . . The Broadway Theatre . . . the early days of Convention Hall . . .
THE TIME they opened the Plaza Hotel Gym and all the fine lads on the program . . . with the late Mayor Stewart in the audience . . . and many other dignitaries . . . and being "dared" into a match with Ray Smith, because his opponent failed to show . . . the same guy who fought Tunney . . . Mike Brennan . . . Gibbons . . . Martin . . . Dempsey . . . Loughran . . . and seeing the Sergeant's body covered with blood in the second round . . . our very own blood . . .
THE YEARS when Gloucester city was the fightenest town in the nation . . .
The days of K. O. Joey O'Donnell . . . who fought them all. . . Of Frankie Conway . . . who never took a backward step . . . and still has the same courage today. . . . Of Willie Spencer . . . who headlined show after show. . . . Charlie Daggert . . . now a referee in Philly. . . . Jimmy Rafferty . . . Eddie (Kid) Wagner . . . Young Sherlock . . . Abe Wustbond, later an instructor of boxing at Herman's gym in Philly . . . Eddie Forrest . . . and his brother, who fought Battling Nelson . . . the crowd-pleasing Willie Fuller . . . Joey O'Connor.
Back when "Chick" Hunt fought under the name of Eddie Melson . . . and later, in professional ranks, the night he fought Joe "Kid" Fisher at the Apollo theatre in Gloucester. . . . Chick is our friend today . . . but we don't believe he ever will forgive us for that night when we yelled at Joe to . . . well, we yelled at Joe; . . . The days of Harry "Dick" Donohue, trainer and manager of Nick Nichols.
AND THE BEST, learning the business under the incomparable Eddie Prince . . . who knows how to condition fighters . . . then and now . . . with the best in the nation. . . . The days when they called Mister Georgano "Lemons" . . . but affectionately . . . not because he was ever sour.
When Johnny Sapio . . . who only days ago was honored at a banquet at Weber's Hof Brau by so many people the walls bulged . . . fought under the name of Young Joe Grim.
HOW MANY will remember when our own Eddie Garrity, now the sedate deputy director of public safety in Our Town, was a boxer . . . with plenty on the ball? . . . When George Murphy boxed around here . . . and the Tighe brothers, Eddie and Jimmy . . . Remember Richie Hoehner? . . . Jimmie Jordan? . . . Eddie Douglas? . . . Bobby Graham, then a soldier stationed in Gloucester? . . . Steve Jackson? . . . Frankie McLaughlin (whose brother Neil WAS on Retreat with us, Mrs. McLaughlin, and gave us much of this information)?
Recall Johnny "Homo" Bryan? . . . Duncan Carswell, Jimmy and Jack Dean, referees, all three? . . . Theo Ellick, the matchmaker. . . . And who could forget Joe Spearing, afraid of nobody then and now . . . he fought our boy Fisher three times to our knowledge . . . once in Atlantic City . . . another at one of the ball parks here and the third (the windup, no less) in Gloucester. . . . Who won . . . who cares?
THE DAYS when a Cook was a promoter . . . and a Politician(?) got the gravy. . . . The time "Red" Haines fought Roxey Allen over top the old Standard movies at Second and Vine streets . . . amateur against a near-champ . . . and what a battle . . . when Everett Joslin and Johnny Taylor were on the First district wagon and backed it up to the door leading to the second floor, and all the people gathering around because they thought it was a raid . . . and all they came to see was a round or two of the fights.
Back when Joey Powell had an iron fist . . . and Soldier Freedman an iron jaw. . . . When Mayor Victor King was always in the front row at the bouts . . . when Augie Oswald "worked" the river in his boat for shad and other fish . . . when a dollar was a dollar and not 27 cents . . . when the downtown fight gym was operated by Charley Mack . . . whose brother Battling Mack was a great drawing card and a great fighter . . . and Charley was no softie, either.
THE SUMMER BOUTS in the ball park when you could get a swell bleacher seat for half a buck—and be closer to the bouts than $50 seats at some of the big clubs now . . . and see better fights, too.
When Camden had growing pains . . . and its people started moving to the suburbs . . . when a guy who made 40 slugs a week was a "big executive." . . . When copy boys on the papers got $4 a week . . . and had enough left over from their salary to lend money to reporters who made the tremendous sum of $25 a week. . . . Great days, say you . . . great days, say us. . . . Nostalgia.
Mrs. Iacovelli Is Dead at 71
Camden Courier-Post –
Mrs. Filippa Iacovelli, 71, died Thursday night in her home, 912 S. 4th st. She was the mother of Frankie Conway, former middleweight and featherweight boxer and now the proprietor of the 11 O’Clock Club in Westmont.
Mrs. Iacovelli was born in Italy and had resided in Camden since 1909. She was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sacred Heart sodality, Cabrini, Mother and St. Rocco societies, St. Gabriel, St. Lucy, St. Michael, St. Gerardo and Circle St. Rocco societies. She also was a member of Loggia Garibaldi 835 and the Union of Brotherly Love of Camden.
Also surviving are another son, Anthony, also of Westmont; two daughters, Mrs. Louise Ricciardelli, Camden, and Mrs. Della Uhorchak, Woodlynne, and five grandchildren.
Solemn requiem Mass will be celebrated Monday at 9:30 a.m. in Our Lady of Mt. Carmel R. C. Church. Relatives and friends will meet at 8:30 a.m. in the Bocco Funeral Home, 4th and Walnut sts., where friends may call Saturday and Sunday nights. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery.
Veterans Boxing Association Ring No. 6 – 13th Annual Banquet
Frankie Conway was honored as Man of the Year at the 13th Annual Banquet of Veterans Boxing Association Ring No. 6, held at Moffa’s Farm, Blenheim, N.J., May 7, 1961. The following is from the banquet program:
Our Guest of Honor, Frankie Conway was born in Camden on November 3, 1900 and in his pre-teen days when he wasn’t selling newspapers down at the Pennsylvania Ferry, he was either playing on one of the city playgrounds, or boxing with the neighborhood kids in some back yard, or in the street. At the age of fifteen, after having a dozen or so amateur bouts, Frankie boxed his first professional bout with Kid Dougherty at the Douglas A. C. in Philadelphia and after six tough rounds he received the handsome sum of $5.00. Now Frankie thought that was better and much quicker than selling papers. He sometimes didn’t earn that much in a week standing outside in all kinds of weather.
So Frankie embarked on a boxing career that took him from one town to another meeting the top contenders in both the bantamweight and featherweight classes. Among some of his bouts were the rough and tough’ Whitey Fitzgerald, Benny Valger, Harry “Kid” Brown, Bennie Kauffman, Battling Murray, Frankie Jerome, Maxie Williamson and the Gloucester blacksmith, K. O. Joe O’Donnell (a few of these old timers are here tonight).
After almost ten years of boxing and close to 200 bouts and in the early part of 1924, Frankie was not yet 24 years old, when he had the misfortune of losing the sight in his left eye, and shortly after, the same happened to his right eye. Several operations by the best eye specialists in New York proved futile. But Frankie didn’t give up … being young and ambitious, he tried his hand in the cafe and night club business and today he is the proud owner of the 11 O’Clock Club at 18 West Cuthbert Boulevard in Westmont.
The petite gal that you see with him constantly is his lifetime manager, trainer and wife who before she became Mrs. Conway, was the former Maude B. Stiles.
Also here tonight are his two sisters, Mrs. Louise Ricciardelli of Westmont and Mrs. Della Uhorchek of Trenton and brother Tony, also of Westmont.
And this in brief, is the story of our Honorary President, the Champion of Champions. Yes, we of V. B. A. — Ring No. 6, are indeed proud and greatly gratified to have you Frankie Conway as “OUR MAN OF THE YEAR — 1961.”
Veterans Boxing Association Ring No. 6 – 13th Annual Banquet Program, honoring Frankie Conway as Man of the Year, held Sunday Evening May 7, 1961, at Moffa’s Farm in Blenheim, N.J.